The paper, ‘Analysis of Public Policies That Unintentionally Encourage and Subsidize Urban Sprawl’, is the last of the studies by LSE Cities for the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate.

The report is written by Todd Litman of the Victoria Transport Policy Institute, and investigates evidence that current development policies result in economically excessive sprawl. It defines sprawl and its alternative, “smart growth,” describes various costs and benefits of sprawl, and estimates their magnitude.

Suzi Hall gave a presentation on ‘Diversity as urban infrastructure’ at the ETH Forum Wohnungsbau 2015 on Thursday 26 March. The event was organised by the Department of Architecture at ETH Zurich in Switzerland.

LSE Cities Suzi Hall gave students from Harris Academies an insight into the work of social scientists at a workshop focussing on the economic and cultural life of Rye Lane, Peckham, on Wednesday 18th March.

Dr Suzanne Hall used Rye Lane as a lens to explore issues of social change, including migration and urbanisation, with a group of 15-20 Year 12 students from Harris Girls’ and Harris Boys’ Academies (East Dulwich) and Harris Academy Peckham.

The Configuring Light/Staging the Social project is featured in a piece titled Why we need to rethink lighting design for better cities in the The Fifth Estate, which is Australia’s business newspaper for the sustainable built environment.

Priya Shankar’s piece, The carnival of the ‘common man’, looks at the Indian government’s national ‘smart cities’ agenda in the context of whether this can best serve the needs and improve living conditions for ordinary people. The piece was published on the openDemocracy digital commons website on Sunday 8 March. Please click here to read the full article.

Philipp Rode gave a presentation on ‘Cities and the New Climate Economy: The role of Urban Form and Transport’ at the Urban Redevelopment Authority in Singapore on Monday 9 March. Rode presented findings from the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate’s New Climate Economy (NCE) project.

Suzi Hall gave a presentation on the Super-diverse street: a ‘trans-ethnography’ across migrant localities, at Kings College London on Thursday 26 February. In the seminar Suzi Hall shared the findings of ethnographic research into the economic and cultural life of Rye Lane, an intensely multi-ethnic street in Peckham, South London.

Mona Sloane presented at an event on Public Interest Design, which took place on Tuesday 24 February from 6.30-8pm and was organised by New London Architecture.

This NLA event powered by pechakucha sought to highlight key projects and it’s London based practitioners to illustrate the impact of these interventions – what are the successes of this movement as a new approach to poverty alleviation and sustainable development?